--- title: Donald Trump: Republican Party Floats Spending Elsewhere description: Reince Priebus told Donald Trump in a phone call last week that if he doesn't turn his flailing campaign around, the national party may shift its focus from his candidacy to down-ballot races. canonical: https://time.com/4447527/donald-trump-republican-national-committee/ author: Zeke Miller article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-08-11T10:00:07.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T23:54:13.660Z article:section: Politics og:title: Exclusive: The Republican Party's Chairman's Warning to Donald Trump og:description: Internal GOP polls show campaign headed in wrong direction og:url: https://time.com/4447527/donald-trump-republican-national-committee/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt760087a1acabae3e/69889cfb0a4a22368a9ca8c7/christopher-morris-rnc-republican-national-convention-09.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5032 og:image:height: 2831 og:image:alt: TIMEPOL RNC og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Exclusive: The Republican Party's Chairman's Warning to Donald Trump twitter:description: Internal GOP polls show campaign headed in wrong direction twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt760087a1acabae3e/69889cfb0a4a22368a9ca8c7/christopher-morris-rnc-republican-national-convention-09.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Exclusive: The Republican Party's Chairman's Warning to Donald Trump > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. by [Zeke Miller](https://time.com/author/zeke-j-miller/) ## Zeke Miller Aug 11, 2016 10:00 AM UTC  Donald Trump at the Republican National Convention on July 20, 2016, in Cleveland. Donald Trump at the Republican National Convention on July 20, 2016, in Cleveland.Christopher Morris—VII for TIME by [Zeke Miller](https://time.com/author/zeke-j-miller/) ## Zeke Miller Aug 11, 2016 10:00 AM UTC **Correction appended, Aug. 11** In a telephone call with Donald Trump last week, Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus laid out his concerns with the direction of the GOP nominee’s campaign, according to two Republican officials. On the call, Priebus informed Trump that his campaign seemed to be headed toward failure and that changes were needed to get back on track. The officials said Priebus described to Trump internal party polls that show his campaign headed in the wrong direction. Priebus told Trump that he would have been better off had he spent the days since the Republican convention at his Mar-a-Lago Club, officials said. The possibility of Republicans effectively abandoning Trump by prioritizing voter outreach for down-ballot races now haunts his presidential campaign. In the last two weeks, Trump has suffered [a deep dive in public polls](http://time.com/4445780/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-iowa-pennsylvania-ohio-poll/) amid a number of controversies caused by his own public statements . Priebus and Trump talk frequently, with the party chair urging Trump for months to professionalize his operations and campaign. But the tenor of the calls turned more frank and frustrated last week as Trump’s campaign slide continued. The officials said Priebus explained to Trump that he had a responsibility to the entire Republican Party, not just the presidential nominee. With the party seeing record numbers of ticket-splitting voters in its internal and public polls, the GOP is facing a decision about whether to prioritize outreach to those voters who would never vote for Trump but remain open to supporting its Senate and House candidates. The end result could be the party expending resources to turn out voters who will vote for Hillary Clinton but also back Republican Senate incumbents like Marco Rubio in Florida or Rob Portman in Ohio. With early voting beginning in mid-September, Priebus told Trump he doesn’t have much time to reverse his polling slide, the officials said. Priebus reinforced a longstanding plea to Trump to stay on message—a goal that remained elusive more than a week a later as Trump’s economic speech was quickly drowned out by [comments viewed by critics as promoting political violence](http://time.com/4445467/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-second-amendment-judges/). [Read more about the exchange in the new TIME cover story](http://time.com/trumpcampaign). **Correction**: The original version of this article incorrectly characterized a telephone conversation between Donald Trump and Reince Priebus, based on information from Republican officials. The Republican National Committee has acknowledged the possibility of redirecting its resources, but a spokesperson says Priebus did not explicitly convey that possibility to Trump in that phone conversation. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4447527/donald-trump-republican-national-committee/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4447527/donald-trump-republican-national-committee/"},"headline":"Exclusive: The Republican Party's Chairman's Warning to Donald Trump","datePublished":"2016-08-11T10:00:07.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T23:54:13.660Z","description":"Internal GOP polls show campaign headed in wrong direction","url":"https://time.com/4447527/donald-trump-republican-national-committee/","keywords":["Donald Trump","Reince Priebus","Republican National Committee","Republican Party","Election 2016"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt760087a1acabae3e/69889cfb0a4a22368a9ca8c7/christopher-morris-rnc-republican-national-convention-09.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Zeke Miller","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/zeke-j-miller/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt760087a1acabae3e/69889cfb0a4a22368a9ca8c7/christopher-morris-rnc-republican-national-convention-09.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"TIMEPOL RNC","caption":"Republican National Convention, Cleveland, Ohio.","creditText":"Christopher Morris—VII for TIME","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/donald-trump/","name":"Donald Trump"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4447527/donald-trump-republican-national-committee/","name":"Exclusive: The Republican Party's Chairman's Warning to Donald Trump"}}]}] ```